Wallet of Ideas: New Yorkers Suggest Ways to Save the Budget

Published: February 17, 1991

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If I had one wish, it would be the creation of a mass public-works program. If New York is being crushed by the need to provide general services like sanitation and infrastructure repair, that could really work. At the same time it is being strangled by an increased welfare burden. You could strike at both of those problems by getting people into jobs. Deidre Sullivan Writer

When I think of city and state government, I think of annoyance, bloat, waste, sluggishness. Dealing with most local government offices is a real pain in the neck. Business is not a golden child, but the private sector can serve as a role model for instilling competitiveness and verve in government. Angelo Falcon President of the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy

What I don't see happening at all is a critical evaluation of how the city does its business. Part of this critical re-examination has got to be a strengthening of institutions in poor neighborhoods. This is an opportunity to raise the issue of redistributing the city's wealth, because some can manage cutbacks better than others. There is a connection between poverty and racial tensions and an unfair distribution of services and city resources that fall along racial lines. Susan Brownmiller Writer

I'm horrified at all the proposed cuts in services. What we've got to do is tax the filthy rich. I think we should go with a one-year emergency surcharge added to the city taxes: one percent if your annual income is above $200,000 but below $300,000; two percent if it's above $300,000 but below $400,000, and so on, up to $1 million. I'm convinced that this would wipe out the deficit. But it would have to be on the gross income, and extended to the people who live outside New York City but work here. Edward W. Hayes Lawyer and former assistant district attorney in the Bronx

Cuomo's budget is good because he relied on cutting costs and raising taxes. He pushed back on localities the idea that they also have to cut costs, particularly in the school system, where it is possible.

I would favor a limitation on the terms of legislators. If congressmen and state legislators did not look to get a lifetime job, they would have a whole different attitude to managing the business. Or, you could shoot every tenth bureaucrat as a warning to the others. Roy Friberg Recovering heroin addict with AIDS who tries to get addicts into drug treatment

There's a lot of exorbitant waste as far as welfare is concerned. When I see putting people in welfare hotels instead of putting them in an apartment where the rent is a lot less, I see the waste.

You're going to need to start funding more drug programs. Unless you deal with that problem, New York City is not going to get any better. You've got professional "boosters" who will shoplift to pay for drugs. You've got drug-related murders, neighborhoods taken over by drugs. Your drug money is not going back to the city. It's affecting every segment of society.

Photos: David R. Jones (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times); Susan Brownmiller (Jim Estrin for The New York Times); Barbara Ann Teer (Jim Estrin for The New York Times); Robert M. Hayes (Neal Boenzi/The New York Times); Angelo Franco (Jack Manning/The New York Times)